Fiercely original and unapologetically innovative, Ross Lovegrove describes himself, somewhat reluctantly, as an industrial designer. "It's not as grimy, it's not as deep and dark as that sounds," he says. Famous for his tactile and sensual fluid forms, he takes his inspiration from nature to create an organic minimalism that he calls "fat free" design.

"Nature is a very big part of my work and always has been. I've never seen it as a trend or a fashion," he told CNN.

In the early 1980s, with Frog Design in West Germany, he worked on projects including Sony Walkmans and Apple computers. He later moved to Paris as a consultant to Knoll International.

Since returning to London in 1986, Lovegrove has worked with a wide range of clients including Airbus Industries, Peugeot, Apple Computers, Issey Miyake, Olympus Cameras, Tag Heuer, Herman Miller, Japan Airlines and Toyo Ito Architects in Japan, as well as a host of top design brands. See some of Ross Lovegrove's designs. »

Away from his client work, one of Lovegrove's projects is the "Car on a Stick," an electric bubble car that turns into an elevated streetlight at night.

"In my own work, I'll learn from doing a super-lightweight suitcase in Osaka," he says. "Then I'll think, 'How can I use that super-lightweight technology to do the chassis of a car?' It's transfer and exchange of knowledge."

His work has been extensively published and exhibited internationally and is held in permanent collections of various design museums around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MOMA), the Design Museum in London and the Vitra Design Museum Weil Am Rhein, Basel, Switzerland.